The tyranny of the set-top box.

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Apple TV has been a persistent loser from a company that usually only tolerates winners. It's clear that Apple wants to do something "in the living room," but damned if it can figure out exactly what that is. Yesterday, Apple took another run at this thing, announcing an "all-new" Apple TV.

As with any new electronic gadget, I must be of two minds about the new Apple TV. The first, most difficult question is, will the new Apple TV be a successful product for Apple? The second question is easier: is this a product I want to buy for myself?

For any consumer electronics product, the degree to which those two questions have the same answer is dictated by—for lack of a better term—one's geekiness. Mine is substantial. I have not wanted any of the Apple TV products (including the one released yesterday), and thus far, none of them have had much success in the market either. But does that mean that an Apple TV designed to my specifications would be a hit? The easy answer is, probably not.

But pondering the prospects of a cheaper, smaller, streaming-only, renting-only, iOS-based Apple TV device in the rumor-filled weeks leading up to its announcement yesterday has changed my mind. In this particular case, I think my desires are actually very well aligned with the mass market—and continue to be at odds with the products Apple has decided to create.

This ain't no disco

It seems to me that Apple has been trying to recreate the success of the iTunes Music Store with its Apple TV efforts. Success in the digital music market had a familiar set of requirements. The experience had to be easy, the content had to be there, and, of course, the price had to be right. Apple knocked these down one at a time with iTunes, starting out as a Mac-only product, adding a hardware component to ensure a smooth end-to-end experience, and getting content owners on board with a combination of guile ("Hey, it's only available to Mac users, a tiny percentage of the market. If things get out of hand, at least it'll be contained, right?") and trademark Steve Jobs persuasion ("Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?")

That worked for music because Apple was first on the scene. Legal digital music sales that non-geek customers could understand and use successfully didn't really exist before Apple's iTunes/iPod combination arrived. Apple had time to grow its music business organically, with very little competent competition. The end result for consumers was simple, comprehensive access to almost all the content they wanted, at prices they found acceptable.

The landscape in the living room is very different. It's not a green field where Apple can plant its digital seeds and grow them into a beautiful walled garden. It is, to use Steve Jobs's own word, "balkanized." Even before Apple dipped its toe in the water with the first Apple TV in 2006, the living room was a battlefield scorched by decades of competition between broadcast networks, cable and satellite providers, and a whole raft of consumer electronics makers.

Apple's failure to recognize this reality has been and continues to be the root cause of Apple TV's woes. Pulling an iTunes—creating a "flagship" experience that comes to define the entire market—is nearly impossible to do in such a crowded, well-established market, but Apple seems determined to keep banging its head against this wall.

Make it simpler, stupid

What I want, and what I believe the market needs, is a way to simplify the byzantine world of TV and home video. You can't do this by pretending that the rat's nest of cables, contracts, and TV-connected devices in all our lives doesn't exist. Apple's job is to tame this mess, not ignore it.

Consider traditional cable TV. For a flat monthly fee, it provides unlimited access to programming on a huge number of channels. Pay a little more per month and progressively more sophisticated content becomes available. And all this is before even considering the on-demand/pay-per-view options.

No one person can watch all TV programming a cable subscription offers, and the mandatory bundling of channel "packages" often grates on consumers (though it pays for a lot of the less mainstream content that geeks love). But the bottom line is that most people have one or two TV shows that they're not willing to part with. Any living room "solution" that doesn't offer a way to view that hot serial drama on the night it airs or a favorite soap opera or that obscure cooking reality show your dad is obsessed with will never be a comprehensive solution. Instead, it just adds to the giant mess hanging off the back of the TV: another expense, another device, another remote, another headache.

Cable TV is just the tip of this iceberg. Repeat this situation for all of the other existing sources of video content—satellite, the Web, Netflix, Amazon, home video from camcorders, and yes, even illegal downloads of content that no one is yet willing to sell to you in a timely manner. Consumers are drowning in complexity; we need help!

The solution is a device that is unabashedly omnivorous. Yes, in traditional Apple fashion, it must provide a simple, elegant, user interface. But behind the scenes, it must be willing and able to accept content from as many sources as possible. This is what makes the device valuable and desirable: dealing with and hiding all this complexity!

Is this show on cable? Satellite? Downloaded from the Web? Streamed from Netflix? Is it on my Mac? My iPhone? Does it need to be transcoded? Upscaled or downscaled? These are the things geeks deal with manually right now, and regular people have little chance of figuring out. People will pay for a device that will handle all of this for them. It might take a while, but word would get around about the new device that actually makes your living room less complex, for a change. One box to rule them all.

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it

Apple has the technology and the expertise to create such a device. But as Steve Jobs made clear with his remarks at the D8 conference in June, he doesn't believe a product like this can compete with subsidized set-top boxes and still make a profit. "All you can do is add a box onto the TV system," Jobs laments. "You just end up with a table full of remotes, a cluster full of boxes, a bunch of different UIs, and that's the situation we have today."

The solution? Jobs continues: "The only way that's ever going to change is if you can really go back to square one and tear up the set-top box and redesign it from scratch with a consistent UI across all these different functions, and get it to the consumer in a way they're willing to pay for it."

He's close—so close!—to having the right answer. He was, in typical Jobs fashion, obliquely teasing the new $99 Apple TV device that would be released a few months later. Where he went wrong was in entertaining the fantasy that you can ever "go back to square one" or "tear up the set-top box." That ship has sailed.

Furthermore, no gradual roll-out of content deals is ever going to give Apple TV the sales volume it needs to accelerate the progress of those deals, regardless of the price of the device. Content owners are now too savvy to just give Apple the kind of power it managed to attain with its iTunes music business; they're dedicated to preserving the "competitive landscape," ensuring that no one device manufacturer or online service becomes dominant. The end result for consumers is a preservation of the status quo: confusion, complexity, chaos.

The only realistic solution is to make an end-run around the existing players. Instead of trying to establish yet another isolated beachhead, accept and absorb all available content by any means necessary and concentrate on providing a unified interface to all of it… Apple-vended content included, of course. Win the consumers' hearts and minds first by being the hero they need to save them from the current mess surrounding their TV. Win all those other content deals later, once everyone has your device in their living room. Step three: profit.

This is necessarily a long-term strategy—no iPhone-like sales curves here—but it's founded on a consumer-focused approach that Apple frequently claims as a core principle. Put aside short-term business and "go-to-market" concerns and focus on the problems people actually face in the living room.

Apple needs to accept the things it cannot change and have the courage to change the things it can. Perhaps consumer reaction to this latest Apple TV device will finally give Steve Jobs the wisdom to tell the difference.

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John Siracusa
John Siracusa has a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Boston University. He has been a Mac user since 1984, a Unix geek since 1993, and is a professional web developer and freelance technology writer. Emailsiracusa@arstechnica.com//Twitter@siracusa

213 Reader Comments

Success in the digital music market had a familiar set of requirements. The experience had to be easy, the content had to be there, and, of course, the price had to be right. Apple knocked these down one at a time with iTunes, starting out as a Mac-only product, adding a hardware component to ensure a smooth end-to-end experience, and getting content owners on board with a combination of guile ("Hey, it's only available to Mac users, a tiny percentage of the market. If things get out of hand, at least it'll be contained, right?") and trademark Steve Jobs persuasion ("Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?")

Hmm, not sure what exactly you are trying to say here, but reading the text as it is written, I can't help but point out that the succesion of events you portray there has no basis in reality.

With many devices and TV's already doing exactly this, what is the point of Apple TV? It's yet another box that the masses don't want to figure out...and another 100.00. They should just kill it now...or I guess they can let it bleed to death.

AppleTV has an A4, iOS, and the slick interface. What it doesn't have is an ecosystem. In line with what you're saying, but extended to the App model- where Apple doesn't necessarily control the experience.

Netflix and Hulu are on the iPhone and doing well. They are allowed to extend Apple's platform.

If Apple allows other content providers to extend AppleTV it will run past all the other players. It will lose some of the integration and elegance, but the richness would make it worth it. If they implemented it as a plug-in model, ala providers as a drop in 'codec', then they wouldn't necessarily even need to lose control of the interface...

Leading up to this event a lot of tech bloggers were stating that they suspected Apple was going to turn this market on its head and finally get it right. I'm assuming Roku lowered the price of its box in anticipation of Apple "getting it right" as well.

The market is pretty much the same today as it was yesterday. Apple just wants to have something out there for those entrenched in their eco-system. Might as well right?

I was really expecting apps and motion sensitive controllers of some sort. Sadly disappointed. Why would I buy this box when it doesn't add any real value? I can rent shows I already get - wow! If it let me cancel cable, that would be an entirely different proposition.

They shouldn't have introduced this until they could offer a package competitive with satellite and cable. Maybe a menu of network programming, all on-demand. $2.50 for NBC, $2.00 for FOX, $1.75 for Food Network, and $2.25 for CNN. There, that's my monthly streaming package, built to order for me. Nickle and diming consumers at $.99 per episode seems to turn people off, when they could negotiate bargains with networks that would work out for everyone. And Apple would have the only device on the market that could do it, at an attractive $99.

Me? I've got netflix streaming on my PS3, and Hulu+ is right around the corner for $10/mo. That's enough for me to shove DirecTV out of my house for good and not regret a thing.

I'm pretty sure the software described is exactly what boxee does. It takes programs from your computer, the web, and anywhere you can possibly think of, and then makes them available to you so that you don't have to worry about where they are coming from.

I was pretty underwhelmed with it. Had it been simply an ios device that allowed apps, we may have had something. But no, Apple doesn't want ABC to put their app on there with free content (albeit with commercials) when it can charge 99 cents a show.

GoogleTV now has a chance to hit a home run...please don't screw it up.

Jobs isn't that far off - something like Tivo with an app store and forcing the cable companies to support CableCard or a sufficient technology would be golden from my perspective. You'd have antenna/cable support, a DVR, support for different apps that could do Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, etc. I think he's right that this goes where the cable box is. Just need the FCC to get some balls and kick the cable companies out of locking people into them.

The solution is a device that is unabashedly omnivorous. Yes, in traditional Apple fashion, it must provide a simple, elegant, user interface. But behind the scenes, it must be willing and able to accept content from as many sources as possible. This is what makes the device valuable and desirable: dealing with and hiding all this complexity!

Right now I hook my laptop up to my tv every time we watch something (hulu and netflix almost exclusively). I don't have cable or watch much OTA stuff. The apple tv looks pretty good to me and I'd buy it if it had hulu content (even if only hulu+). Roku and the boxee box have been tempting me, but the integration with my mac on the apple tv would make it a clear winner. Anyone know if it is going to get hulu content soon?

Where he went wrong was in entertaining the fantasy that you can ever "go back to square one" or "tear up the set-top box." That ship has sailed.

i don't feel like the ship has sailed. an adequately equipped HTPC could easily accomplish this provided a decent UI was built to cater to the need we have for everything to be easy and accessible.

the only thing that's really standing in the way is the cable company. if the cablecard hadn't turned out to be such a miserable fail, we'd have the ability to build these all in one cord-spaghetti eaters at will, and the consumer electronics industry would follow suit. god knows netflix wants their content everywhere, and hulu could probably be worked with as well.

deals would need to be made. tivo did it somehow. it wouldn't surprise me if apple somehow managed to strike a deal with the prominent cable companies.

I'm a huge fan of the current Apple TV. It lets me consume 'vetted' content (i.e., old TV series that have stood the test of time) without advertisements. Even for current shows, watching them a day later without having to fast-forward through the ads is worth the price. My cable box is only still here for sports, and PBS.

Making it so I don't feel guilty about deleting shows I have paid for but watched -- maybe that will make me comfortable with having to re-rent when I screw up the allotted (DRM-imposed) viewing slot, maybe not. Time will tell.

Putting Netflix on it (yes, I know I could do that with yet another box, and I do do it by ripping and encoding and syncing) only sells me all the more. Now I have 1-button access to that content stream.

What's next? I agree: "Embrace and extend". If they manage to put a Hulu app on the Apple TV, you are bound to see that set of content providers come to the negotiating table.

I'd probably accept any single device that could put the content I want on my TV screen, but I have to say I am rooting for Apple -- they do seem to do it in a simple and stylish way. Who really needs 187 buttons on their remote?

I think the fact that only FOX and CBS(?) got on board with this is evidence that Apple simply can't do the arm twisting required to 'finally get it right' as consumers want them to.

Also, Netflix integration is an encouraging sign, and a step toward the idea of an all inclusive box that plays content regardless of who is making money. An iOS base would make it feasible that this could expand in the future to Hulu and the like. I wouldn't recommend Apple TV for someone based on its potential, but there is no denying that potential is there.

Success in the digital music market had a familiar set of requirements. The experience had to be easy, the content had to be there, and, of course, the price had to be right. Apple knocked these down one at a time with iTunes, starting out as a Mac-only product, adding a hardware component to ensure a smooth end-to-end experience, and getting content owners on board with a combination of guile ("Hey, it's only available to Mac users, a tiny percentage of the market. If things get out of hand, at least it'll be contained, right?") and trademark Steve Jobs persuasion ("Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?")

Hmm, not sure what exactly you are trying to say here, but reading the text as it is written, I can't help but point out that the succesion of events you portray there has no basis in reality.

Apple introduced iTunes for the Mac only on January 9 2001. They released the first iPod on October 23 2001. The iTunes Music Store opened alongside the launch of the third generation iPod on on April 28 2003, at which point iTunes had yet to appear for Windows. iTunes was released for Windows on October 16 2003.

Which part of that fails to support the article's representation of the succession of events?

Here's the catch: The iPod was successful long before the iTunes Music Store *BECAUSE* consumers already owned content to play on the device. Their CD collections (and Napster) had laid the groundwork for iTunes' success.

AppleTV just took a huge step backwards -- consumers have almost no content to play on Apple TV. They pay obscene amounts of money to the cable companies every month for content in a form that Apple TV doesn't acknowledge. And the early adopters who download content also can't play it on an Apple TV.

The iPod didn't have this chicken/egg problem, since a) it wasn't a walled garden and b) consumers controlled the content.

So who is Apple TV for? Consumers who only watch ABC and Fox shows? They already get that content for free. How many are going to pay Apple $1 for the convenience of renting something they can watch for free on their cable DVR? And among those who WOULD pay for broadcast programming, why would they RENT episodes from Apple when they can BUY them from Amazon for the same price?

In a world where Apple and consumers don't control the content, Apple's only option for success is to partner with the content providers. Until that happens, Apple TV will remain a hobby.

Well put, as others have stated, TVs are rolling out this experience, so there will be no need for another set top box soon. At the moment there is a market in all the houses that aren't currently buying new TVs, but this market won't last. Apple (or anyone else) needs to put it all together, but there is a lot to put together:

Streaming (Netflix,Hulu,etc)Gaming (otherwise your PS3/Xbox/etc will still be needed and will eat your lunch)DVD/Blu-ray (love it or hate it, this is still a requirement for TVs)Local Media (other wise you need a media server running too and it can do most/all of the above)Cable (cablecard?)DVR

Until you get all of these in one, I just don't see it going anywhere (though eventually the DVD/blu-ray requirement will disappear)

Apple (and others) have the capability to do all of this in one box (hell, a windows MCE + TVtuner will basically do it right?), why can't it be done right in a set-top box?

With many devices and TV's already doing exactly this, what is the point of Apple TV?

The AppleTV is the gateway. You have to start somewhere, and without at least one interface between a display and the network, you can't start anywhere. So the AppleTV is there to get your TV talking to your computers. From there, it's all just a matter of software and services.

The problem with so many other typical devices, and by this I mean the cable/satellite DVRs, Blu-ray players with online access (including the PS3), and TVs with online apps built-in, you wind up locked in one silo or another. You're right that, as it stands, the AppleTV is no different in this regard. As I understand John's commentary, however, Apple is in a good position to change this.

Where other systems either depend on lock-in or else have little or no consistency or interoperability at all, Apple's system doesn't have to depend on lock-in in order to bring some consistency to the content sources. Just as iTunes supported protected AAC files but also unprotected files you could load in from wherever, the AppleTV system could offer a number of Apple-proprietary services like iTunes Rentals while also supporting open and third-party sources, like Netflix or whatever you can rip onto your computer.

The extension I think John is presenting and with which I agree, would be to rope in other premium services. For example, if you wanted to watch HBO shows, you just get the HBO App. Apple provides a distribution system for the software, a payment system to manage the subscription, and in-app purchases to satisfy "on-demand" customers. If History is all you watch, get the History App. Or Adult Swim. Or the BBC, or whatever. Apple in this scenario supplants the cable provider completely.

The advantages for the content producers would be huge. Rather than selling to the cable company, they sell directly to the customer via Apple. With a direct relationship to the customer, the producers can find other ways to bankroll their productions besides, say, commercials. Niche shows don't have to get cancelled just because a national broadcaster can make more money with a blander show. International programming can reach those who want it, rather than just those who can afford to double their cable bills .

And for consumers, so-called a-la-carte packages are much more viable, because you aren't subject to the needs of a cable company to balance its subscription fees (what it pays to the producers) with its earnings from customers.

Anyway, you have to start somewhere. And while things are changing shape, yes—or even "freakin DUH"—you're going to have yet another box. But until any of those other boxes allows you to start sourcing content from providers outside the operator's silo, *someone* has to put yet another box in your system.

If Apple wants this business, and if they're paying attention at all, AppleTV's vague purpose and all the pundits going "But what's it for??" should be a good sign. It means there are, as yet, no obvious obstacles.

And in the meantime, things like AirPlay are a sign of the icing on the cake to come. Being able to push content to your TV over the network could quickly make wireless HDMI and other such things quite pointless.

Good article. Really highlights the problem that plagues family rooms right now: too many f*cking devices. Most companies won't try for something like you suggested because it hurts the bottom line too much, but I think Apple has more than enough surplus money to nail this problem and then make a profit on your third step.

I am so supremely disappointed with the Apple TV. If Apple had actually put iOS on it, and supported the same apps that are slowly opening up iOS to native playback of various video formats, they could have had the whole enchilada. If Apple put out a nice, intuitive controller for the Apple TV, they could have with one fell swoop staked a large chunk of the home video console market, along with the mobile gaming market that they are currently doing so well in.

Nintendo has to be breathing a huge sigh of relief at the small box of fail that Jobs introduced yesterday.

The iPhone succeeded because it was a phone. For this, Apple had to negotiate with AT&T.

At least in the US, the Apple TV won't reach the same heights, and be more than a hobby, unless it is also a cable box. Apple makes a deal with a cable company, brings in a proper UI, an App Store type of experience, and à-la-carte subscriptions to different channels, Netflix, Hulu, etc... through apps. Boom!

Its quite clear Apple wanted to deliver a bunch of on-demand programs available for a fixed monthly price. The networks refused.

Apple cannot do what they want in the market because the networks are not willing to take risks. The difference between this and the music market is that it wasn't a big risk for the record labels (iTunes was originally mac only allowing them to use it as a test run).

Right now, there's no way to simplify. You need to go through the cable/satellite company's UI to do anything useful. Apple is locked out of doing what John proposes. The FCC's AllVid proposal would actually make it possible:

and support their idea. Cable and telcos benefit from using public rights of way, and are a natural oligopoly. Congress passed a law about 15 years ago telling the FCC to make it possible for there to be set-top box competition, but cable continually thwarts them. AllVid could end the situation.

Apple's problem is that they keep it too tightly tied to iTunes. Hulu? That would interfere with tv show rentals. Boxee? Studios wouldn't like a device that can play pirated videos. I'm a little surprised they put netflix on the box but it's everywhere else so I guess it was concede that or forever lose the game.

I've got a HUGE investment in iTunes videos so apple has a natural advantage with my purchases, but if Apple would make an atv app store, support 1080p, and offer a $199 model with a dvd player and a $299 model with blu ray they'd pretty much own the home TV market and not just the people stupid enough to buy into iTunes DRM.

I think if Apple would ever want to make an Apple TV which we would be able to use to view all our content, including our illegally downloaded movies, the networks would probably immediately pull their support and Apple would have a lot more problems trying to offer legit content...It doesn't matter that .mkv's and whatnot aren't illegal per se, movie networks think they are and they are stubborn (and ignorant to this regard) as hell :-p

1) The cable TV satellite / TV oligopoly uses it's privileged position to make it hard/impossible for an internet based video delivery system to entirely replace them Above all else, they don't want to become "dumb pipes" that just provide commodity internet access.

2) Content providers don't want any one company to get a dominant position in downloadable video the way iTunes did for downloadable music. They don't want anyone to develop a monopoly/oligopoly on THEM. Thus, they will try to make sure that there are multiple providers all with only partial catalogs of content.

Its quite clear Apple wanted to deliver a bunch of on-demand programs available for a fixed monthly price. The networks refused.

Apple cannot do what they want in the market because the networks are not willing to take risks. The difference between this and the music market is that it wasn't a big risk for the record labels (iTunes was originally mac only allowing them to use it as a test run).

Jobs lacks the will - or the support of the shareholders - to really make the changes he envisions. He is not totally without options here.

As has been pointed out numerous times in the past, the entirety of the content production industry is worth about as much as one next-gen fab. Apple is sitting on a rather impressive pile of cash and equity...

I don't want to use all of these sources for content, but it's what I have to do because the market of delivery of content is so fragmented.

Right now I use a home media computer to bring this content to my HDTV. I'd love to get rid of the loud, power hungry beast that is coupled with a "poor" couch experience. But I won't be getting rid of it unless there is a better way to stream most (if not all) of different delivery channels to my living room. In this regard the basic open architecture philosophy of Google is more suited for this purpose than Apple's proprietary nature.

This AppleTV is world's better and much cheaper. The odds of us buying an AppleTV have jumped significantly; we're just waiting to play with it. The reasons:

a) being able to stream iPhone/iPad content straight to TV is very nice and simple, and solves a huge headache in that experience

b) we have Netflix and currently use our iPad to feed our TV streamed Netflix content. The AppleTV makes a nice substitute

c) streaming iPhoto/iMovie from a Mac in such a simple way is super nice as well. The AppleTV would be ready to go at any time when guests drop in. And no syncing headaches.

d) dirt cheap, $99 is negligible for the convenience of a, b, c

As for Netflix, it has a market cap of $4 billion, what the heck is Apple waiting for? just buy them out and screw the content providers in the process since they'll be buying the content distribution licenses.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Apple was competing with free! It was competing in a market where people were buying CDs and pirating things off Limewire and Gnutella was routine. In fact, This entire article seems to be committing the very mistakes this Slate article cited about people who keep writing off Netflix.

I really don’t think your interests are aligned with the mass market, primarily because the mass market currently doesn’t own all that many video files. The idea that “that ship has sailed” for retooling the settop box seems far fetched. How many people have a set top box? The closest thing is a 360 and the PS3, but even those are primarily thought of as game consoles. I wager less than half the owners actually utilize their set-top capabilities. Hell, I’m pretty geeky and I don’t care to spend my time integrating my 360 to work with my computer. I think the big disconnect between geeks and the mass market in this case isn’t even the hardware or its capabilities, it’s the content. Geeks tend to be pack-rats. We like having giant terabyte drives that we fill up with anything we ever consume, will consume, or thought about consuming at some point. This magpie-like tendency can sometimes border on OCD, but the average joe doesn’t share it. Most of the TV people watch is trash, and what’s more is that the people watching know this! They really are content to just watch something once and then dump it. Does anyone really need to “own” an episode of Top Chef at the end of the day? I really don’t think this is going to be a concern for most people. Yea, if you watch a lot of TV the 99 cent rentals might not be for you, so you might as well just keep cable then. For the rest of us, those of us who only watch 1 or 2 shows on a regular basis, about $25-$30 a season would still be about half of what we pay per month on cable.

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I think the fact that only FOX and CBS(?) got on board with this is evidence that Apple simply can't do the arm twisting required to 'finally get it right' as consumers want them to.

Part of this is simply the nature of the commodities. In the recording industry the record labels sell songs. So a model of selling songs is pretty easy. TV networks, however, don’t sell TV shows, they sell eyeballs. The TV shows attract the eyeballs which the networks then bundle and sell to their advertizers. Transitioning TV networks from making their money off content directly rather than the eyeballs produced by the content is going to take some time. The networks aren’t used to the business model and they’re not sure where it’s going to go.

To stream local content, you do need iTunes running. I keep my iTunes library on a hard drive attached to an Airport Express, and I can manage it from my iMac or play music from it on my HTPC in the living room. I can keep my iMac off most of the time.

Apple TV doesn't allow that--you need to control everything you play from iTunes. Apple TV is a glorified AirPort express. AFAIK you can't even control music from Apple TV--you need the iOS remote app to do that.

As far as "simplicity" goes. With Apple TV to play a song you might be using an iMac, a TV, an Apple TV, an iPhone, and an Airport Express. Real simple. I want to subtract devices, and combine devices, not add devices.

I'll buy one. I haven't got anything hooked up to my TV right now that integrates my computers with my TV -- whether it was going to be AppleTV or a MacMini, it wasn't going to be cheap once it was properly configured, and then of course there's all that tweaking, and how *am* I going to run a Mini without a suitable wireless mouse -- feh.

All in all too much trouble and too expensive for all I *really* wanted to do, which was watch video content from my desktop's hard drive on my TV screen in the family room. The new device, at $99 and with no actual setup or controls to speak of, is simple and cheap enough to let me take the plunge without feeling as though I've thrown away time and money if it doesn't turn out to get much use after all. It's an easy decision now. Netflix and rentals - well, those are nice features, and maybe I'll make use of them. In the meantime it's just an Airport Express for video and I'm happy to shell out this small amount for just that functionality.

For me, needing to buy TV shows that I watch infrequently is a storage and maint pain. If I want to watch 3 episode of Pawn Stars one from each Season, well, today I own 3 seasons. Instead I could spend the cost of a season per year, to catch the episodes I miss off the regular broadcast time or if no longer available on my cable on-demand feature. With all the content I already have, how many times will I go back to them? Especially with a catalog of old TV shows, it would save me time and space.

I ordered one to replace my existing first day model with upgraded 7200rpm drive.